Monthly Archives: July 2014

A special edition of the journal Technology and Culture has been published to reflect on the diverse range of questions posed by the dead body in the contemporary era. ‘The Corpse on Trial‘ deals with the sensory effects of cadavers and their decomposition, bringing together essays from anthropologists, archaeologists, biologists, sociologists, historians, lawyers and film critics to compare their disciplines’ approaches to “corpse waste”, forms of representation and epistemological concerns for these often perceived objects of repulsion. Among the contributors Elisabeth Anstett sheds light on the social sciences’ approach to corpses en masse in her chapter ‘Des cadavres en masse’, and discusses the ramifications in an age of technology.

On 1st-4th August the Akademie für Politische Bildung Tutzing will host the conference “Terrortimes, Terrorscapes? Temporal, Spatial and Memory Continuities of War and Genocide in 20th Century Europe”.

2014 marks the centenary of the beginning of the Great War and the 75th anniversary of Germany’s attack on Poland in 1939. This calls us to explore temporal and spatial continuities between the diverse horrors of war and genocide in the first half of the 20th century as well as investigate diverse forms of memory and memorialization of atrocity. Furthermore, the conference seeks to include transnational perspectives by inviting scholars from different national backgrounds working in Europe and the US. As such key concepts will be explored such as temporal continuities of war and atrocity, colonial and violence of decolonization, spatial approaches to define violence as well as gender and generational memory of war and atrocity.

Sévane Garibian has recently published ”Ghosts Also Die. Resisting Disappearance Through the ‘Right to the Truth’ and the Juicios por la verdad in Argentina”, Journal of International Criminal Justice, vol. 12:3, 2014, pp. 515-38.

This paper attempts to provide a more complete understanding of the so-called ‘right to the truth’, deriving from court-made doctrines in the human rights field and associated with an alternative form of legal proceedings in Argentina that has no equivalent anywhere else in the world: the trial for the truth (juicio por la verdad). This is a procedure sui generis created in the aftermath of the military dictatorship in response to both the politics of forgetting that prevailed in the 1990s and the continuing obstruction of criminal proceedings up to 2003 due to amnesty laws. Protecting the right to the truth fulfils three functions in turn: first, it makes possible conciliation of amnesty with the right to judicial protection; second, it constitutes the condition for real access to justice; third, it validates the reality of the crime. Each of these functions is associated with one of the three elements, which, together, comprise the struggle against impunity: investigation, sanction, and reparation. Situated between truth commissions and classic criminal proceedings, symbolic reparation and retribution, the Argentinian trials for the truth offer a new way of conceiving both the criminal-law judge’s mission and the relations among law, truth, history, and memory in the context of the rich debates about (post-)transitional justice.

On September 2003 the Argentinian National Congress declared that impunity laws 23.492 and 23.521 were “absolutely void” and, in the same session of Congress, elevated to the rank of constitutional guarantee the Convention on Imprescriptibility of Crimes of War and Crimes Against Humanity. Since then, more than a hundred sentences have been announced, some of them recognizing the reality of genocide in Argentina. This means not only that justice has been obtained but also that a favourable situation has arisen for victims as well as their relatives and friends who have found a place to tell their experience and contribute to the fight against impunity.

The Argentina Trial Monitor believes it is key to participate in this process so as to record the historical moment and reflect upon what happens during the trial and upon what victims as well as perpetrators have to say. The trials are the result of years of struggle by human right organizations and other groups within the Argentine society, and they enable a productive debate over the consequences of state terror and its effects on Argentinian society’s current and future practices. We stress the importance of understanding and framing this violence as a genocide in order to highlight and better deal with the aftermath of state terror.

On November 28th 2012, the most significant trial in Argentinian history commenced. Centred on crimes committed at the Superior School of Mechanics of the Navy (ESMA) from 1976 to 1983, a period during which approximately 30,000 people were killed in Argentina, the trial will involve 88 defendants and 800 victims. It will be the largest trial to date in Argentina. Despite the importance of this and other trials in Argentina that have been held since the Argentine Supreme Court declared the impunity laws and amnesties unconstitutional in 2005, there is little English language information about the trials taking place in this country. The Argentina Trial Monitor (ATM) project seeks to address this situation.

The Argentina Trial Monitor will be jointly run by the Center for Genocide Studies at the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero(UNTREF) in Argentina and the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights-UNESCO Chair for Genocide Prevention at Rutgers University in the United States, with the assistance of some Argentine human rights organizations such as Asociación de Ex Detenidos Desaparecidos and Comisión de Familiares de Campo de Mayo and Casapueblos and affiliated Rutgers partners, including the Translation and Interpreting Program in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

Studi Tanatologici (Thanatological studies), edited by the A. Fabretti Foundation, is the only Scientific Journal in Italy specialized in the study of death and dying.

Thanatology, a complex field that requires the dialogue between different fields of knowledge, is the focal point around which converge disciplines such as History, Anthropology, Sociology, Medicine, Psychology, and others. The Journal is therefore interdisciplinary and open to national and international experiences.

The main section, “Studies and research”, features issues such as: rites and funeral practices; death and dying from a cross-cultural perspective; grief and mourning; cemeteries and funerary policies; representations of illness, body, ageing and death; end-of-life decisions; euthanasia; bioethics; palliative care; socio-cultural and historical perspectives on death. Each issue also includes a section “Classics in Thanatology and the anthropology of Death”, a Glossary and a Reviews section.

The editorial board ensures a wide dissemination of the journal both on paper and online, promoting free access through the major open access platforms. Thanatological studies is recognized by the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research Systems (ANVUR). The journal ensures a high level of scientific quality through a rigorous peer review process.

Authors are invited to submit original and unpublished articles to the section “Studies and research”. Contributions are accepted in four languages (Italian, English, French and Spanish) and should have a total length between 30,000 and 40,000 characters including spaces.

The submission deadline for the seventh issue scheduled for December 2014, is September 15, 2014.

Your manuscript should be sent to the editor at studitanatologici@fondazionefabretti.it or cristinavargas@fondazionefabretti.it